CHAPTER V

MAGIC OF NARRATION

Each period in thc history of Afro-American literature contains its own

agenda. Most Afro-American authors have sought to provide at least a glimpse

into their diverse experiences of each of these periods. A glance at the breadth of

Afro-American literati~rc reveals two facts: First, Afro-American experiences have

varied widely from thc point that Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas:

Sccond, thesc cxpcricnccs are bound by the eternal desires of Afro-Americans to

continue surviving and thriving in the Americas. Strangely, this desire stems from

the long and extremely difficult period of indentured servitude and chattel slavery,

the systems under which most African Americans lived and struggled until the

abolition of slavery in the U S in 1865 after the Civil War.

The first two ccliturics of the African diasporas sojourn in the US were

marked by the dominancc of the Slave Narrative and African American Folklore,

both of which continucd to influence Afro-American literature and politics long

after the end of slavcry. These two creative forms represent the totality of Afro-

American experiencc pl.csented by Toni Momson. The two were incorporated

into the magic realist tiction of Morrison using her individualistic and innovative

narrative technique and special use of language. This chapter therefore has its

focus on her narrative methodology and her powerful use of language.

Morrison is a painstaking wordsmith who rewrites over and over again.

Her concern with the accuracy of language is not a private indulgence in wordplay

but an effort to rcstorc and validate the oratory of the black community Restoring

that language is not abou t dropping g's or adding i's. It's about respecting the

rhythm and the sound of the art of storytelling, about enlarging the meaning and

sounds of words, abo~lt leaving open spaces in the dialogue so that her reader can

hear the language and participate in the interpretation.

Her first novel, The Bluest Eye has a narrative structure that defies the

norm in canonical literature. She brings in an internal clash of competing voices

by giving us a preface in the form of an American Primer which is followed by the

story of Pecola Breedlovc, a young black girl who longs to have beautiful blue

cyes. The implication 1s that Dick and Jane described in the primer stand for the

whites who are guilt;, of marginalizing the wide spectrum of poor blacks of

Amerrca of whom Pecola IS just a representative. The preface is first spaced wide,

then closer and finally running together without any spacing. This technique in

typing is employed by thc writer to establish how the primer story has been taught

mechanically to gencrations of black children.

The black children nat~lrally look upon the lives of white children as the norm.

The narrator-cum-friend of Pecola is Claudia Mac Teer. While taking the reader

into confidence as she talks about Pecola, her narrative voice is convincing and

authentic. When the same narrator talks poignantly about the past of Pauline

Breedlove or Cholly Hrcedlove, the reader just cannot understand how a teenager

is able to know the dirc cffects of alienation from a larger society. The mediating

voice of the narrator in this novel has been commented upon by many critics.

Some say that the duality of these voices represents the duality of black

consciousness - of how blacks must see themselves on their own terms and

through the eyes of others. Valerie Smith comments upon this practice of

Morrison in letting the protagonists' lives intermingle with the haunting account of

the past lives of the minor characters as well:

"Occasionally thcir characters reminisce in their own voices in mid

conversation. But more often than not an omniscient voice interrupts the

narrative prescnt to tell and interpret a character's personal history. These

frequent forays ~nto the past import to Momson's novels a kaleidoscopic

quality, a temporal density, and an extraordinary breadth of focus." (Self-

Discovery and - Authority in Afro-American Narrative 122).

Futuristic narration is Morrison's special forte. She announces forthcoming events

beforehand. There arc scveral examples for this in m. For instance, when Nel

sees Sula walking off after her wedding, Monison remarks that it will be ten years,

later that they will mcct again. Instead of the usual chapter-wise divisions,

Morrison gives us diffcrcnt years as chapter headings. This devise is a boon to the

reader, as the different milestones in the three-generation Peace family can be seen

as links that run through the novel. Though specific years are given as chapter

headings, therc arc two periods about which the reader is not given any idea as

such. One is when Eva leaves Medallion for eighteen months together and returns

with an amputated leg. The. second is when Sula leaves her community for ten

years soon after Nel's marriage with Jude Grecne. No explanation is given to the

reader about these blanks in time. Barbara Hill Rigney interprets this as a special

narrative technique of Morrison:

"Reverberation is that quality which characterizes all of Momson's fictions

- what is left unsaid is equally as important as what is stated, and specified,

what is felt is as significant as what is experienced; what is dreamed is as

valid as what transpires in the world of 'fact'. And none of these conditions

of being is rendered as opposite, there are no polarities between and

mysticism, betwccn real and fantastic." (The Voices of Toni Morrison 26)

Fragmentary and elliptical narration becomes Momson's favorite method

of narration. This is secn again in Song of Solomom where different accounts of

the same incident are n,~rrated by different characters so that a clear picture of the

~ncident finally emergcs to the reader:

"The same story.. . is picked up in different places, retold and expanded

into further complexity. For example, Milkman's father, Macon Dead,

explains the tension between himself and Milkman's mother, Ruth, to

Milkman, alleg;ng that Ruth had an unhealthy fixation for her father and he

for her which culminated in Macon finding Ruth in bed with her deceased

father.. . Ruth's own version portrays herself as a lonely person who needed

the support of hcr father ... Each retelling of a story in the novel, as here

raises new questions suggesting that any one version of anything inevitably

generates fresh interpretations."(Toni Monison 58-59).

Tar Baby docs not cover a broad period of time as the other novels of

morriso on. I t is set precisely in the period of time starting from autumn 1979 to

autumn 1980. Howcvcr, it falls within the category of the mythic narrative. De

Weever who has studicd the reclamation of myth by African-American writers

claims that the mythic narrative : "...establishes lines to a world that is not only

beyond the real world but that, at the same time, transforms it." (Mythmaking and

Metaphor in Black Womcn's -- .. Fiction 4).

The American vernacular tales of Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby are adapted by

Morrison in this novcl. Just as in these black oral tales of the plantations,

Morrison wants to let the world know how white culture identifies Negroes with

animals. Similarly Gideon, the black servant in Tar Baby outwits his master

just like Brer Rabbit who is able to survive the cruelty of the white farmer. Later

on, the mythical figure of Brer Rabbit is merged with the trickster figure in Son

who brings havoc into the household of Valerian Street. Linden Peach remarks:

"Changing his name several times, like the trickster figure, Son has

assumed dit'fercnt identities among different peoples - William Green,

Herbert Robinson, Louis Stover - and, in keeping with the trickster

tradition, the reader never learns his true name ." (Toni Momson 82).

Morrison thus infuses the mythical elements into her narration in Tar Baby with

the hope of enlisting tllc powerful influences on the African -American psyche.

Through the narration of Son, she also wants to uphold a traditional African

identity in an increasingly capitalist world.

Toni Morrison's fifth novel, Beloved takes the reader to a strange world

where mysterious life tccms with the energy of the living beings of this world.

She doesn't talk about any isolated countrylregion while presenting this intensely

alive other orders of being that relate with human beings. Instead, she grounds the

story of Beloved in history. Her intension is to present the horrors of slavery in

America. She sketches the story of a slave woman - Sethe, who runs off from

Sweet Home, a plantation in Kentucky to Cincinnati, only to find that her bold

step to save herself and her children from the white master has made her house -

124 an abode of the angry spirit of her slain child. The novel thus functions as a

fantasy. Joseph Campbcll clarifies this feature: "The division between the two

distinct realms of ordln:rry and faery reality blurs ... so that faeries experience our

world and wc expcriencc theirs."(A Fairy Tale Reader 9)

Susan Bowers assigns to Beloved the status of African - American

apocalyptic writing:

"Morrison's novcl maps a new direction for the African - American

apocalyptic tradition which is both more instructive and potentially more

powerful than the end-of-the-world versions of the sixties. She has

relocated the arena of racial battle from the streets to African-American

psyche from wncre the racial memories of Black people have been taken

heritage". (The - Journal of Ethnic Studies 18.1 (1990) 59) .

Accordingly, Denver, thc only child left with Sethe by 1873, tries to shoo away

Paul D whom she looks upon as an intruder, by talking about the presence of the

ghost in 124. She tells him the ghost is there, it is her dead sister's ghost and that

she has died in that hotlse. Paul D doesn't find that scary. Instead, he starts joking

about the headless spirit of a bride that used to roam about in the woods behind

Sweet Home. Sethe too remembers the story and therefore doesn't question the

authenticity of thc talc. Such stories about departed souls are part of their racial

consciousness.

Bowers maintains that the present day African Americans have lost contact

with their ancestors of the past. That is, they have forgotten the atrocities done to

them during the days of slavery. Momson's bounden duty is to make them

remember it all, through her narration of Beloved. Thus we find Sethe and Denver,

her daughter reconciled to tlic presence of the spirit before Paul D's amval. Both

were all alone there and they even look upon the house as a spirit: "A person that

wept, sighed, tremblcd and fell into fits."(Beloved 29). When Baby Suggs,

Denver's grandmother was alive, she too registered the same sentiment: "Not a

house in the country u ~ n ' t packed to its rakers with some dead Negroe's ~ e f . "

(5). Her explanation is that it is only natural that every house in Cincinnati is

possessed - the souls o f dead Negro slaves have come back to claim retribution, to

narrate their woes or to be just near their kin. This casual acknowledgement of the

presence of spirits has immediate relevance in Momson's narrative technique. She

advocates a revisioning of the past as it is filtered through the present. Her

aesthetic ideal is based precisely on this activity. The deliberate act of

remembering is her form of willed creation. Ashraf H.A. Rushdy comments upon

this revisionary projcct of Morrison : "Keeping in touch with the ancestor.. . is the

work of a reconstruct~vc memory." (American Literature 64,3, (1992) 567)

A revisionist mclhod assists Morrison as she makes the past palatable for a

present politic in Beloved. For example, the novel records Denver's bafflement in

seeing Beloved perfectly well-versed with the important happenings in Sethe's

life. The crystal-earrings, which Beloved had not seen, are a source of much

fascination for her. 'l't~is perplexes Denver. Sethe has a long story as an answer.

The crystal earrings wcrc given to her as a wedding present by Mrs. Gamer for

whom she worked at Swcet Home. Sethe also remembers that her little child used

to be bewitched by those canings. The reader immediately concludes that

Beloved is none othcr than the spirit of her little child. An explanation to

Denver's confusing cl~~crics can be found only if one looks up the whole novel as a

fantasy that helps Morrison in her revisionist method:

"Its world of magtc is symptomatic of fevers deeply burning in the psyche:

permanent presences, desires, fears, ideals, potentialities, that have glowed

in the nerves, hummed in the blood, baffled the senses, since the beginning.

The one psyche is operative in both the figments of this vision-world and

the deeds of Iiuman life. In some manner, then, the latter must stand

prefigured in thc former."(A Fairy Tale Reader 89).

The narratorial technique used in Jazz pertains to the omniscient Narrator

who does not reveal t l~c identity even at the end of the novel.

"In a dazzling act of jazz-like improvisation, moving seamlessly in and out

of past, present and future, a mysterious voice-whose identity is a matter of

each reader's imagination - weaves this brilliant fiction ..." (Editorial

review of Jazz: i\mazon.com.)

Though the narrator professes to know each and every detail about the character of

the novel, at times thcrc arc open confessions of complete oblivion about their

whereabouts. For instance, Violet decides to gather all the information she can get

about Dorcas. The narrator's remark follows: "May be she thought she could

solve the mystery of lovc that way. Good luck and let me know." & 5). This in

itself is a characteristic of postmodem narrative. So, the arbitrary nature of

narratorial voice questions social authority. Robbie. B.H. Goh, who discusses

Angela Carter's magic realist works, asks whether her mode of narration, which is

incidentally similar to Morrison's truly a: "... 'dialogic' subversion of the

monologism of early i)ourgcois society or did it 'reinforce' that ideology by

offering a prc-political. disordered discourse?" (ARIEL 30.3 (1999)68). As

Robbie B.H. Goh, at ;in earlier part of the same essay, admits that the textual

manifestation of postmodernism, for many scholars, is magic realism itself, it can

therefore be proved t l ~ a t this narrative technique belongs to the realm of Magic

Realism

Another attemp' to transcend the laws of fiction is done by Momson when

she lets her narration jump on to different points in Time without alerting the

reader beforehand. An cxample for this is seen in Jazz where the Narrator hops

between a description of Joe's search for his mother and the account of his frantic

hunt for Dorcas. Discovering the gender of the narrator is tough for the reader

because the voice reads the extremely typical habits of women with ease: "They

are all like that, these women .... They are busy and thinking of ways to be busier

because such a space 71' nothing pressing to do would knock them down." (16).

With the same undcrst:rnding, the Narrator sympathizes with a young man: "Aw,

but he is young, young and he is hurting, so I forgive him his self-deception and

his grand fake gestures.. ."(155). Interventions, explanations and comments are all

part of the waywardness in narration that we encounter in Jazz.

As thc author of ~- I'aradise, Morrison unearthes the psychological trauma and

cultural change expcricnced by each of her characters. Morrison herself admits:

"I'm looking to find a ~ i ~ i expose the truth about the interior life of people who did

not write it." (0g:Thgl.c 302). This is the reason why she resorts to fragmentation

in narration in this-novel too. An example is seen in the description of Amette

Fleetwood, daughter of Arnold Fleetwood, one among the New Fathers who were

bent on guarding their ~.acial purity. Arnette is in love with K.D., the grandson of

Rector Morgan who belongs to the same proud Negro stock as Arnold Fleetwood.

In fact Rector Morgan and his father, Zechariah Morgan had built the two only

black towns of Haven alid Ruby . It is in the section called 'Grace' that the reader

comes to know about thc urgent meeting of both the families' male members.

They meet in the prescncc of Rev. Misner to discuss the atrocious act of K.D.'s

slapping Arnette's lace in public. The reader gathers from K.D's private thoughts

that Amette is pregnant. The meeting of Morgans and the Fleetwoods comes to

an end with the decision that K.D should apologize to Amette. She is to leave for

college soon. The ncxl section 'Seneca' makes a mention of Arnette who is back

homc from college. She refuses to leave her bed. This solitary reference to

Arnette has an abrupt ciid in this chapter.

The section entilicd 'Divine' describes the marriage of K.D and Amette.

Other events follow lik' the introduction of Pallas, a new addition to the convent.

When everyone is aslccp at the convent, a girl appears with a piece of wedding

cake. Her name is not given by Morrison. Only the single sentence she utters is

narrated: "'I'm lnarriutl now,' she said. 'Where is he? Or was it a she?' "(Paradise

179). Nothing morc is mcntioned about this girl. Gigi, an inmate of the convent,

stamps the girl mad. blavis feels sad for her. She thinks she should have given her

at least a doll. Pallas. tiic new resident, wants to know why she has come there on

her wedding night. h.lavis explains that the girl had come to the convent years

before. Then Connic lrad helped her to deliver her child. This is the first time the

reader hears about tlic outcome of Arnette's pregnancy. Even now, Momson

refers to Amctte 3s "SIIC" without revealing her identity. The convent women talk

of Arnette's accusatiui~ that thcy had killed her baby. The reader thus gets to know

that the child was shunned outright by Amette soon after the delivery. Thus it is

the discussion among the convent women that gives away the identity of this

intruder with a wedding cake.

The name of Arnette Fleetwood finds a recording again only in the fifth

section called 'Patricia' where Pahicia Best, daughter of Roger Best and Delia, is

charting out a collection of family trees of fifteen families of Ruby. Pat Best

marks the marriage ol' K.D. and Amette in her book. She starts thinking of the

latest piece of news illc baby of K.D. and Amette that will be born in March' 75.

Other genealogies of li~~nilics arc then examined by her. Suddenly she scribbles a

new piece of informalion about Amette on the K.D. pages' margin: "Somebody

beat up Amettc. 7'hc convent women, as folks say? Or,/quiet as it's kept, K.D.? ,"

(195-196) The rcadcl- thus is able to interpret the psychological crises of Amette

Fleetwood as thc res:rlt of the pure breed community's practice of fostering its

ethical code. It becamc worse when K.D., her lover went after Gigi, a convent

woman. Also, cultural transition may have affronted Amette as she migrated to

the city to study in ;I collcgc. Thus mental harassment and the penetration of a

new culture made Arncttc thc complex personality she is.

A full plcturc ot Arnette can be formed by the reader only if repeated

careful reading of the four disjointed pieces of narrative about Amette in four

different sectlons of the novel is made. Pat Best's jotting in the margin reveals

that the raving mad convent women had attacked an equally mad Arnette who

went to the convent on hcr wedding night to enquire about the baby she had there

in her teens. Rachcl Blau Du Plessis sees such unconnected narrative as a

deliberate measure of women poets who like to trample down cultural hegemony:

"Narrative displacement is like breaking the sentence, because it offers the

possibility of spccch to female in the case, giving voice to the muted.

Narrative degelct~~nisation 'breaks the sequence', a realignment that puts

the last first an*] the first last has always ruptured conventional morality,

politics and narr;itivc." (Writing beyond the Ending 108) .

Thus, in the case of Arnctte Fleetwood , a fragmentary nmative speaks out her

mental derangement and the rigours of having to live as part of a close knit

community. Robbic B.ti. Goh who traces magic realist elements in the narrative

technique of Angela Carter interprets such narration to be " ... a feminist critic of

patriarchy, or a postmodcmist destabilization of received history". (ARIEL 30.3

(1999)69) . This is truc of Morrison's broken narratives too if the reader analyses

its subversive and radical ends.

Toni Morrison's provocative stories "Recitatif' is all about Twyla's

placement as an eight - year - old child in St. Bonaventure , a shelter for

neglected children and her reaction to Roberta Fisk, the room mate she is

assigned. This is a story about a black woman and a white woman; but readers

differ in their opinion about the identity of each. Conventional signifiers of racial

difference like skin colour are abandoned by Momson. In their place come

radically relativistic signifiers like who smells funny to whom. Thus this story

makes race an arena ibl- dcbatc by giving us diverse positions. Similarly language

becomes a terrain for csperimcnts in the hands of Morrison; she dispenses with

traditional signifiers IICI-c too.

Her brand of Magic Realism is extended to her language as well. For

instance, her description of Nature shows the mix of the familiar and the

unfamiliar images. Es;tmples from Paradise are : "Clouds hid the night sky's

best jewelry .. .." (200) and "Under a metal - hot sky void of even one arrow of

birds.. ..." (168). Sin~ilurly in Beloved Autumn is pictured with ". . .. Its bottles

of blood and gold.. . ." ( I 16). The sky is ". . . . stripped of blue, was white hot at

eleven in the morning" (46).

It's not only iii her description of Nature that Morrison makes the bold

venture of bringing to~cther opposites. Even the various images that stand out in

their uniqueness cniploy this. Examples from Jazzare: ". . . the seep of rage " (16) ,

"...little children, strung like beads over suitcases ..." (107), "...clarinets and

lovemaking, fists and thc voices of sorrowful women" (7), ". . . the tips dropped in

my palm fast as pecans in November" (128), "In his company forgetfulness fell

like pollen" (100) etc. Other startling images from Beloved which yoke together

two extremes are : ". .. a baby's venom (3), " ... the lively spite the house felt for

them" (3), "Suspended between the nas-Itiness of life and the meanness of the

dead (3-4), ". . . life in the raw" (38), " . . . lighting's jagged tear through a leather

sky" (84), ".. . a cemetery as old as sky ..." (ISS), "... as cold as charity ..." (l56),

". . . oil lamp in a cellar was sad.. ."(2 18) etc.

The Bluest Eye too abounds in Momson's distinctive use of images

wherein the serious is yoked with the silly and where conflicting pictures are

evoked. These are all reminders to conceive her novel as a fantasy. Images like "

a gently wicked dance" (16), " the imtable, unimaginative cleanliness" (21), " a

sweet endurable, even cherished imtation" (40), "the thunderous beauty of the

funeral" (1 13), "Nuns go by as quiet as lustn(12), " a productive and fructifying

pain"(l4) etc. are examples from The Bluest Eve. In Paradise there are several

instances for this bringing together of polarities in images: "An oven. Round as

head, deep as desire." (6), " .... a river of aunts ...."( I S ) , "Beyond blossom and

death" (304), "The nuns who took the property over had endurance, kerosene and

layers of exquisitely made habitsn.(169) , to cite a few examples.

The quaint auditory images she uses also speak of her attempt "....to alter

language , simple to free it up , not to repress or confine it, but to open it up"

(Women Writers at Work 296) Examples from Paradise are : "...the faraway

cough of cornstalks"(42) and "...the bare feet plopping". . .(43).

The potential of language to carry Morrison's strength in being an Afro

American writer is felt by the reader of Jazz : "This is evident in Morrison's work

in what appears to be at times a kind of 'folk creating', often employing metaphors

derived from the animal and natural world."(Toni Morrison 130). Examples are :

"Defenseless as ducks.. ."(74), ". . .trout multiplied like flies" (177), "They

hunched like mice near a can fire, not even a stove, on the floor, hungry and

~rritable" (1 13) etc.

The dismal and brutal images presented by her are certainly ". . . metonymic

of much larger canvases of horror" (Toni Morrison 129). A few examples can be

seen in Jazz : " A lip of skin hangs from her forehead.. ." (1 54), "...feelings, like

sea trash expelled in a beach - strange and recognizable, stark and murky -

returned." (75), "Daylight starts like a razor cutting the buildings in half' (7) and

"Her eyes were round as silver dollars but slit of a sudden too" (83). Examples

from Song of Solomon are ". . . voice swelled like a blister" (202), ". ..a lightning

arc of terror" (64). "A damp greenness lived there ..." (13), etc. Momson

chooses her images from a woman's world thereby making them essentially

feminist and they fall into Kaplan's category of bold attempts of women writers :

" ...[ F]or any new theoretical approach to literature that uses gender

differences as an important category involves a profoundly altered view of

the relation of both sexes to language, speech, writing and culture".

(Literature in the Modem World 31 1).

For example, in The Bluest Eye, the love that Claudia experiences as a child was

... thick and dark as Alaga syrup." (14). Laughter of grownups that Claudia listens

to is like "...the throb of a heart made of jelly" (16). Poland has a "...sweet,

strawberry voice " (40). Black women were experts in making biscuits which

were "...flaking ovals of innocence" (1 10). When Claudia talks about the terrified

lives of blacks, she says : "...we moved about anyway on the hem of life." (18).

The construction of femininity in language can be encountered in Jau, too.

About Dorcas, she writes : "All those ingredients of pretty and the recipe didn't

work." (206). Talking about the young blood of the party goers, Joe says : " As

though the red wash flying from veins not theirs is facial makeup patented for its

glow" (191). Inside a restaurant, Violet finds that "...the scoops of ice cream lose

their ridges and turn to soft, glistening balls like soap bars leA in a dishpan full of

water" (93). Her use of language thus brings out the quest for the Ah-American

woman's voice, an attempt to create a recycling of typical black and feminist

writing.

Her similes and images are often chosen from the world of women. Trinh.

T. Minh-ha, therefore can include Monison in the special category of women

writers "...who, despite the threat of rejection, resolutely work toward the

unlearning of institutionalized language, while staying alert to every deflection of

their body compass needles." (The post-Colonial Studies Reader 364). Beloved

has several examples for this. So the way Baby Suggs died is described as " soft

as cream" (7) . Denver has " ... the face of an alert doll."(ll). A house's

description goes like this: "...as though a house was little thing - a shirtwaist or

sewing basket you could walk off from or give away any old time"(22). Again

Mrs. Bodwin , a white woman " ... smelled like a roomful of flowersW(28). The

snow that Denver was in was " like the h i t of common flowersW(29). Sethe ". . . became as colour conscious as a hen." (39). The ghost's neck was ". . . no wider

than a parlor-service saucer.. .." (50). Bits of news ". . . soaked like dried beans in

spring water" (65).

The images of food that she brings in portray a woman's world as in

Paradise " . . . the Sun, watermelon red looked edibleW(37) , " the men's squeaky

new shoes glistened like melon seeds" (1 56) and ". . . the scraps of her gobble -

gobble love" (240).

The use of colour reveals a special blending of various hues with life:

"Colours contributes much to the impact of Morrison's writing and often they are

appreciated in a sensual and tactile rather than a purely visual way.. .". (Toni

Morrison 129). A few examples from Jazz are " . . . "butter- colored face" (l9),

green-as-poison curtain"(31), a citysky " ... can go purple and keep as orange

heart" (36), "... freshening the world's green and dazzling acres of white cotton

against the gash of a ruby horizon ..." (105) etc. Again in Beloved, the headstone

in the cemetery was ". . . pink as a fingernail.. ." (5). It is ". . . a dawn coloured

stone studded with star chips" (5).

Apart from painting images with colour, Momson also expresses the

longing her women characters have for colour. In Beloved, Baby Suggs longs for

particular shades of colour when she feels she is exhausted with life: "Bring a little

lavender in, if you got any. Pink if you don'tW(4). Similarly, Amy, the white

woman who helps Sethe to bring Denver into this world also talks lovingly about

the exact shade of velvet she wants: "The velvet I seen was brown, but in Boston

they got all colors Carmine. That means red but when you talk about velvet you

go to say 'Carmine"' (33).

In his discussion on women's language, Robin Lakoff points out that

women always ". . . relegated the non-cruciaVdecisions as a Sop. Deciding whether

to name a colour ' lavender ' or 'mauve' is one such sop." (The Feminist Critique

of language (244-245). Morrison, on the other hand, revels in this special ability

of women to have a fascination for different specific shades of colour. Inspite of

the fundamental uncertainty of survival in a racist world, her women characters

are granted atleast a freedom of choice when it comes to colours, so believes

Momson. Again, it's her subversive twist that makes this strategy magic realist

in nature.

All kinds of semantic derogation associated with Black English are

abandoned by Monison when she uses their characteristic expressions. For

instance, news paper is called ". . .filthy 'talking sheets'. . ." in Beloved (52).

Sethe's ruminating over her past is described using the word "rememory" (201).

The black custom of greeting each other warmly also finds expressions here: " He

said howdy to everybody within twenty feet" (47). Sethe remembers the special

language her mother and her Nan spoke and regrets its complete absence now.

In one of her interviews, Momson had praised Hemingway, Flannery

O'Connor, Faulkner and Fitzgerald saying that the stories they wrote could never

be written by any other writer: "I don't mean the subject matter or the narrative

but just the way in which they did it - their slant on it is truly unique" (Woman

Writers at -295). Her own comment is very much true of Morrison herself.

There are very few women writers who have wielded gender and racial qualities to

advantage as Momson has done thereby assigning a Morrisonian touch to Magic

Realism in her fiction.